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Her body stops moving and her eyes widen, mouth poised as if something is about to come hurtling out of it. Nothing does, as true reality begins to settle in for once. “You want honesty, there’s some of it. Trials. I told you. I’m good at researching to get to my goal. Whatever the cost.”
She blinks, as if maybe this truth will disappear if she does. It won’t. I am nothing more than a chemist, a drug dealer as she once said. And worse, I’m the creator of the drugs, the one who ran the trials to begin with not caring for the affect it might leave on my test cases. “How do you think I made all those combinations of pills work in the first place? It was a by-product of something else, but that connection you felt was a chemical reaction produced by my hand to find answers I need.”
I swallow the temptation to tell her it is more than that with her, and I also hold back from going down roads that might make her culpable in something that is not her load to bear. I can’t do that, no matter how much I might want the possibility it would provide. She wants truths. Reasons why this can’t go further than it has. I’ll give her the most basic bones of them, not allowing the sentiment involved to cloud her judgement.
My hands rough my hair in frustration, as I watch tears spring into her eyes. Much as they might anger me, aggravate and even cut shreds from me down in corners I thought lost and forgotten, anything but them now would be a lie.
And neither of us like those.
I sigh and lean back on a stall door, reaching for my pack of cigarettes and nodding at the sight of those tears. They’re the most real thing about this whole damn situation, because pushing me was only ever coming to this result. And now I’m too weak for her to avoid them.
There is only one more truth she needs to understand, and if she doesn’t ask to leave before we get back to the house, these won’t be the last tears she cries tonight either.
Chapter 14
Hannah
The slow realisation of what this has been, of what those women are, hits me like a wrecking ball. I don’t know what I thought. That they were just mad maybe, but I didn’t … I don’t …
My back bumps into something, making me jump slightly. I can’t think straight, can’t understand what’s happening around me. My fingers start digging into my arms, thrumming a rhythm of some sort to try and find balance or cadence. Nothing works. I’m alone. No thuds like a moment ago. No taps. Just silence and his brooding features, so cold and desolate regardless of the heat I’ve just felt from him.
I turn and run, unable to think of anything to counter that truth, and sprint aimlessly through the grounds. I don’t even know where I’m running to, but all those women? All of them twisted up and strange shells of normality that have become odd and near deranged. He did that?
The thought has me running wildly, eyes searching for somewhere I can hide, think, or perhaps make a plan. What plan? What plan is there for this? I’ve been used.
Treated like a test case.
Analysed.
Dipping under a fence, I desperately pull more energy into me, and keep running across open fields. Maybe I should go back to that other place, let them treat me like I’m insane. I mean, I could be. Maybe I am. All the taps and thuds aren’t real, are they? They’re in my head, nothing more than that. He said as much. Not real.
My feet pound on, chasing down track after track, as my body cuts through tall grasses that we rode through a short while ago. And why that? Why go riding as if we’re something we’re not and then feel that softness from him again? I skid to a halt, head whipping back and forth for direction. It’s dark now, nothing but the lights of his house behind me to lead me there, or the dim lights across to the right to take me back to the madhouse and the gates.
“Hannah!”
Gray.
My eyes narrow, heart racing violently at the sense of calm my name out of his mouth causes in me. No. He’s not mine, not my home either, regardless of his come inside me. It’s like that woman said. He’s not anyone’s. Not theirs, not mine. I need to get back to the city, to the apartment so I can pack and find somewhere new to live. A car? I need one of those.
Spinning on the spot, I launch back in the direction of the house, hoping, beyond all hope, that maybe Jackson is here and he might drive me, or that maybe I can hotwire something. Not that I know how, but I’ll try if it means getting the hell away from this place. How could he do that to those women? And did he sleep with them all? Hold them and pretend it was something it wasn’t?
My head shakes at the thought, disgust settling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t real. Never was. And he told me. He told me over and over again that it didn’t mean anything. That the two of us meant nothing other than what we were at Malachi’s.
“Hello.”
My feet skid to another abrupt halt, body turning to see who that was. There’s no one that I can see, but the grass is moving, as if something's coming in from the left. Monsters. I check left and right, up and down, searching the low, dark grounds. “Are you lost?”
I back up, trying to get out of the grass and into a small slither of light bouncing off the stoned driveway. There’s a form there before I make it, a head tilted at me as if I’m a mystery to be solved and a ball tucked under his arm.
“Erm. Hi.”
“Did you get lost?”
I inch forward cautiously, unsure how real this is and if I’m seeing things or not. He’s only a child. Ten years old maybe. Blonde hair. A healthy dose of cynicism in his eyes for someone his age. “Yes. Kind of. I was hoping that maybe Jackson could take me home.”
He kicks the dust and puts his hands in his pockets, scrutiny levelling his stare at me. “How do you know Jackson?”
“He’s a friend.”
